Strider's Fastball Is Getting Better; Mike Yastrzemski Blasts Some LHPs | Atlanta Braves Podcast

There are a lot of positives to take away from Spencer Strider's outing yesterday, as well as what Mike Ystrrimsky and Dominic Smith were able to do. Let's talk about it. [music] [music] Yes, welcome in to Braves today. Your daily source for news, notes, and updates on your Atlanta Braves. I'm your host, Lindseay Crosby, award-winning baseball writer and podcaster. You can follow me on social media at Crosby Baseball. You can find all my written work, bravestoday.com. That's the Bravestoday Substack, as this is both a podcast and a newsletter. We're proudly part of the Believe Podcast Network and presented to you by FanDuel. Download the FanDuel app or go to fanduel.com to get started. I want to talk about some of the cuts out of camp and what we can learn by the guys they kept. But before we do that, let's talk about some of what we saw in Thursday's spring training game. I'm not normally going to go into detail on a spring training game, right? There's just usually so little that you can learn from these. But when you take it from the process over results perspective, right? Where you're looking to see not specifically, you know, the stats as far as how many runs a guy gave up or how many hits a guy had, but you're trying to look to see the way they did the stuff and were they able to get better. I think you can learn a lot. Let's start with Spencer Strider because the whole conversation when he came back last year was how he's not the same guy. Okay, 2023 he was I've been calling him the strikeout king. Like quite literally he set the Atlanta Braves record for strikeouts in a season. He beat John Smoltz's existing record. And when he came back last year he was not that guy. He wasn't throwing as hard. His velocity was averaging like 95 and change instead of the 97 that he had been 97.2 I think that year. But also the movement on the fastball was not there. And as a guy who had primarily been a two- pitch pitcher going into last year, he needed the fast ball to be effective so he could play that fantastic slider off of it. And Strider acknowledged that it just wasn't working last year. quote, "I can't compete in the strike zone and that's it. My fast ball just isn't getting outs. It's not a contact pitch and it's not moving the way that I need it to move." He had three disastrous starts in August where he combined for a 1543 erra and didn't make it through 12 total innings. They gave him some extra rest. He went to Maven Baseball Lab and he came out looking like a much better pitcher. The last couple outings he made over the year, 36 innings of 250 ball. The version of Mitch Strider we saw yesterday, I would argue is better than the version we saw down the stretch last year who put up the 250 RA. So again, process over results. The surface stats for Strider yesterday were not great. He went two and a third innings with two runs allowed on two hits and a walk. Although he did strike out four and he threw about 48 pitches. But when you look at how he did it and what he was able to do, he averaged 95. If you're the type of person, and you shouldn't be, but if you're the type of person who was concerned on Saturday because he was throwing like 91 92, you had to feel a little bit better about him not only coming out averaging 96 in his first inning, but finishing at 95 for the outing. Okay, there's a little bit more velocity growth over the previous outing. And by this trend, adding 2 mph every single appearance of spring, he'll be averaging 105 by opening day, which is great. 105 on his fast ball would be awesome for opening day. But being serious for a second, what really was heartening and like looked good was he ran it up to 97 multiple times. That's rounding 96.7. The broadcast shows 97 on the gun. Statcast can give us the exact figure. He ran it up to 96.7 multiple times. He averaged 17 ines 17 in of induced vertical break and frequently was touching 18 and 19 had a couple 20 inches of IVB in the outing. So that is good. You'd like to see that the movement on the pitch is already better than it was down the stretch last year when he had fixed some of that, right? When he had worked specifically to get some of the ride back on the fast ball. And we've heard the comments from Walt Weiss, from everybody else. I talked about this just the other day. I feel like I'm kind of repeating myself, but I wanted to talk about how it got even better from the last time we saw him. If you I mean the last couple miles an hour are the hardest to get. But seeing how he admitted he still was not going 100%. You have to feel good about the possibility that he gets up to 96 97 there is a little bit of signs of concern still. He nine swings on that for seam fast. He didn't get a whiff right now. Only one of them was put into play. Right. nine swings, couple like they fouled a bunch of stuff off. Uh only one of them was actually put into play. It was 105 miles an hour, right? Like he gave up a hard hit ball on the fast ball. Didn't get any whiffs on it. But the fast ball being more effective from a nine swings, one ball put into play, you don't love the foul balls, but that's better than the alternative. It did mean that the slider was able to be more effective. He induced 12 swings on the slider, five whiffs. He picked up another there was another two called strikes on the slider and two balls put into play on the slider. One of them was a hit and then they, you know, and and one of the two was a hard-hit ball. But again, he was able to establish the fast ball enough to get whiffs on the slider, which is a big deal for Spencer Strider. And then he threw his curve ball. I think he th I think he used like four of them. And it was mostly his first time through and then he went to the change up a little bit later in the outing, right? His curve balls were fourth and fifth inning. His change ups were fifth and sixth inning. He threw three change up in his in his 48 pitches. It's like 6% usage. It's a little better than he's done in the past. Same thing on the curveball. He's trying to throw this stuff a little bit more. Now, a lot of that came against lefties. Three of his four curve balls came to lefties. All three changeups came to lefties, which makes sense, but Spencer minimizing the slider, going to the other secondaries against lefties, like that is pitching. That is the sequencing and the the kind of being a well-rounded pitcher that we hadn't always seen out of Strider before. So, the argument that I made yesterday in the Northport Report, which by the way, if you're not able to be plugged in with everything happening in spring training, braves.com, go sign up. We put out the Northport report every evening with all of the notes and everything you need from spring training, breaking down what happened in the spring training game that day. other notes about guys making injury returns, who's going to start, tra uh roster moves, who was in camp. Chipper Jones and Dale Murphy were there yesterday. So again, bravestoday.com, go sign up. It comes out every single evening except for maybe one day next week when I'm flying. Other than that, it's going to be out. It's out every single night. So go check it out. But Strider has improved and I feel like already he can be a number two for you. the fan graph's projections based off of just who he is right now is a fif of 350. Now, do I think he needs to outperform that for you to kind of legitimately have a shot here as with him as an ace? I do think he does. I think he needs to get better at that. Ronaldo Lopez, by the way, is also projected for a uh for a mid-3s fip. So is Mitch Schwenbach. Strider and Schwenbach are within nine points of each other on projected FIP. Although Schwelenbach's projected to outperform his ERA or his his FIP by erra and Strider's expected to underperform it because of the homer issue that he had in 23. Like he had one of the best FIPS in baseball in 23, but he had some defensive issues and stuff and he his RA was much higher than the FIP was. Some of that comes with uh not being a ground ball pitcher, right? Like just when you're not give when the contact you're allowing is not ground balls, it's fly balls. There's more variance for something to catch a gap than when you are a a a ground ball pitcher and it's going to go to the defense in the infield that Atlanta typically has a very good one. Clearly Strider is not a finished product. He has more to do, but this is a good sign and hopefully we can see some more progress after this. His next outing clearly, we'll be watching to see what he can do, where he's going to be, but I'll break all that down the next time it happens. In just a minute, let's talk about Mike Yrimsky and Dom Smith. I really love what Yashimky was able to do yesterday with the Blue Jays help. We'll break that down next right here on Braves Today. But first, today's episode's brought to you by our friends at IQ Bar. Our exclusive snack, hydration, and coffee sponsor. IQ Bar protein bars, IQ Mix hydration mixes, and IQ Joe coffees are the delicious low sugar brain and body fuel you need to win your day. Uh, IQ Mix, zero sugar drink mix. It hydrates with electrolytes. It can improve your mood and boost your clarity. But all of the IQ Bar products, they're packed with clean, delicious ingredients that keep you physically and mentally fit. Plus, entirely free from gluten, dairy, soy, GMOs, artificial ingredients, and all of that stuff. With over 20,000 five-star reviews in counting, more people than ever are fueling their busy lifestyle with IQ Bars, brain and body boosting bars, hydration mixes, and coffees. The ultimate sampler pack includes all three. comes in this really convenient box. And when you open it up, they've got all the different flavors, all the different options there for you. And guess what? Right now, IQ Bar is offering Braves Today listeners 20% off of all of their products, including the ultimate sampler pack, plus free shipping. To get your 20% off, text MLB to 64,000. That's MLB to 6400. That's MLB to64000. Message and data rates may apply. Welcome back to Braves today, Lindsey Crosby. Let's talk about Mikey Strimsky and Dom Smith. This is fun because the original schedule yesterday for the Blue Jays coming in town was uh Dylan CE on the mound. So, he decided to stay back in Deneden. He threw a simulated game and they put out lefty Eric Lowour instead. And the Braves because they're not going to change their lineup in spring training. The Braves left Mikey Striky in the lineup against a lefty. And guess what? He looked fine. He went two for four. He faced three lefties and a righty. But again, process over results. It's the way that Mike Estrrimsky did this made me feel really good about how everything went here. So against Eric Lowour, he ripped a line drive the other way on a one-two fast ball above the zone. The next time um he did get beat on a lefty slider, right? 01 slider below the zone, slightly below the zone. It was a chase pitch. He chased it. He grounded it out the second weekly. And then the next time he was up, he adjusted to that to a left to that lefty slider and ripped a line drive to right like 102 in change. Okay. The final time he was up is he saw a righty and he um he went up and got an up and away fast ball for a single to right. But the whole point here was like he had three hard hit balls on the day and against lefties he had two hard hit balls and three at bats and like we've been talking so much about and I think it's mainly kind of me been talking about like hey you need to find a left fielder against left-handed pitching and then clearly you need to find a a DH against right-handed pitching early at least and that's where the Don Smith thing will come in in a minute. But if Mike Ystrrimsky can show that he is at least playable against lefties, then that definitely helps you. In his career, he has a 120 WRC plus against righties. He has a 79 against lefties. And a lot of people cite the 2025 numbers as a reason why he should never face a lefty. Micah Striky had a wrc plus of 20 against lefties last year. But I think it's important to point out it's an incredibly small sample size. Like he faced uh what was it? He faced uh 94 94 at bats against lefties last year compared to 383. 94 at bats is not a statistically valid sample for platoon splits. Like the the recommended picture to do for platoon splits is to look at at least a three-year window, if not more, simply because you want to get as many played appearances as possible. And if you go back and you look at three years of Mike Shrimsky, you still don't even have half a season. Like it's 284 play appearances across three years. So that's kind of why I went and I looked at his career totals, which is seven years. And that that's tough because he's a different hitter in 2024 and five than he was in 2019. I think the point I'm trying to make with this is Mike Ystrinsk's performance against lefties, we maybe should not automatically assume that he is the worst hitter in baseball in that situation. Is he? he probably is not a great hitter against lefties, but I don't necessarily think that we know that for a fact because almost all of the statistical samples we have are either too small to take them as gospel or when you expand out to make them closer to statistically valid. Like in his career, he has 640 at bats against lefties. He has a full season's worth of stats in his career against lefties. But again, that is over seven seasons, and he is a different dude now than he was his rookie year. So, I was encouraged by the process, by what I saw him doing from atbat to at bat to try and be better in those situations. and to respond to how the guys got him out the previous at bat, right? He got fooled on that lefty slider the first time or I guess the second at bat and he adjusted and crushed one the third at bat. So, I think what Atlanta needs to try to do in spring, and I'm sure they'll probably work on this some way, is get him as much exposure to lefties as possible so that one, you could determine how comfortable he is and have a little bit more insight into his true talent level versus left-handed pitching. Okay? And again, you're not going to get to a statistically valid sample in spring training, but the more information you can get, the better. I just think being able to determine how important is it that you find a lefty or sorry, that you find an outfielder that can play against lefties, especially when you have Eli White on the roster. And Eli White's batted ball data from last year was surprisingly good. The problem here again, Eli White sample size is very small, but 20% whiff rate against lefties last year for Eli White. 75% hard hit rate and an average exit velocity of 101.3. Now again, small sample size, but running Yrimsky in left and right and right in spring training anytime you have a lefty on the mound feels like it's a really good idea. Question is, how many more times you going to face lefties in spring? We don't necessarily think it'll be a ton, but getting as much information as possible in those situations would be great because being able to keep Mike Yrimsky in if you have a a lefty reliever versus being forced to go to your bench would be useful. And if Eli White can end up turning that batted ball data into fantastic production against lefties, it's gonna just do it's going to solve all of those problems for you. As far as what do we do to uh replace Jerks and Profar in the field against left-handed pitching? If Eli White can do it, that solves one half onethird one/4 of the equation. And then the rest of it is replacing Jerks and Proofar against righties. And that's probably where Don Smith comes in. I had a big game yesterday. We'll talk about that next right here on Braves Today. But first, today's episode's brought to you by FanTracks, the absolute best fantasy baseball platform on the planet. It is by far the most customizable if you're the commissioner. anything from specific roster settings, scoring categories, all of that. Nobody has more options for you than fan tracks. If you are a player, they have the deepest player pool that exists. There is players in there that I guarantee you you have never heard of, but in certain leagues, you'll need to know who they are, like an open universe league and things like that. Lots of different ways you can play, whether it's dynasty, reddraft, best ball. That's something I want to try to pick up this year. I've heard that's a ton of fun. And I love that if you have a lineup that is featuring guys who are not playing that day, they will ping you on your phone and let you know, hey, you need to adjust your lineup because of this or that or the other. Fantastic. So, Fantrax with an X, f-tr.com/bravestoday to sign up for a free Fantrax league today. Fantrex.com/bravestoday. Final segment of Braves today. Lindsey Crosby. We saw Dominic Smith start yesterday as the designated hitter. And I think what's going to happen here is he's probably going to have the first shot to win the DH job. He goes one for three. He does walk once. The one hit that he had was a two-run homer. It was so huge that Statcast didn't read it for a while. I think maybe the ball probably left the zip code and they had to calculate where it was going to land and everything. They finally came back with the stats on it way later in the game. I thought it was hilarious how long it took for them to come back and say, "Oh, it was only 103.6." They still never had a distance on it. They never could calculate a distance on that. butt just turned and cranked from a leverage reliever in Louis Varland. It's not like he did this off of some minor league scrub you've never heard of. Joseé Azakar ripped a a single at 109.9 off of Devo Harrison who I've literally never heard of and I consider myself a big baseball guy. Dominic Smith did this off of Louis Varand, one of their main, if not the leverage reliever behind Jeff Hoffman. So again, we're I mean, I know I just talked about process over results. You have to love the result, but even when you look at the process, you know, he he had two flyyous. One of them was surprisingly deep. What actually would have been a home run in Houston, right? Hitting that ball out to left toward the Crawford boxes, you know, a deep fly ball there. And in his career, like he has been a good player at times for the Giants last year. He only got in 63 games. So, it's important to point out the sample size here, but he hit .284 with a 111 WRC plus. In the shorter samples, he's been really good. 2020, 50 games, he had a 166 WRC plus. 2019, 89 games, he had a 134. He struggled in Washington in 2023. He struggled in 2024 uh between Boston and Cincinnati. Boston, he was still a league average hitter, 99 W wrc plus. But when you look at the last three years of what he's done as far as specific situations against right-handed pitching in the last three seasons, he's hit 262 with a 104 WRC plus. Is he the perfect designated hitter option? No. Ideally, you would like somebody else to be your DH against Wrighty's. I do think when you get Shawn Murphy back, you have more flexibility to take Drake Baldwin and make him the kind of the primary DH against righties, right? Like you could do something Shawn Murphy could catch on days where you play righties. Drake Baldwin could catch on DA could catch on days you play lefties. And then Murphy can can DH some against lefties because he does do well against lefties. And Baldwin can be your DH against righties. And you can mostly ride, especially if Murphy's hitting, you can ride Baldwin's bat six days a week. Maybe give him one day off a week. You probably have to keep Jonah on the roster in that situation, but there's things you can do, right? But until then, until you get Shawn Murphy back, I was happy to see the process for Dom Smith. I feel like he wasn't ever completely overmatched or anything. I do feel like his at bats for the most part went well. His first at bat against lefty Eric Lowour, he ran it out to seven pitches. He had fouled off a couple close pitches, taken some balls off the plate. I think the only time when he kind of got beat was maybe I I want to say there was a fast ball up at one point in time in the at bat that he just barely missed. He fouled it off, but like outside of that, the process was good against the lefty. And then when Louis Varlin came in, he took a knuckle curve up in the zone, elevated breaking balls. I've talked about this a couple times now. And then he turned around and went and got a fast ball in the outer third and cranked it. Like the processes against the major league guys that he faced were good. He drew a walk against CJ Van Ike and that was forcing fast ball away. Actually, the same pitch that he hit out against Varland. took that pitch for a strike against Van Ike and then he watched a curveball away. He watched a fast ball in. He watched a fast ball away. Fouled off a slider up again. Breaking balls up. It's going to be a thing. Just get used to it. And then he did not chase the fast ball up and took the walk. Like he's the processes are sound here for Dom. Do I want the Braves to upgrade? Yes. If they don't upgrade and Dom Smith is your DH for the first month and half of the season, is the season over? Probably not. It's not ideal. But I've maintained this the entire time. What Austin Riley does, what Matt Olsen does, Ronald Akuna Jr. staying healthy, all of those things are more important than what who is your designated hitter batting in the bottom third of the order. the end of the day, yes, I want to improve off Dom Smith, but if Austin Riley is not Austin Riley, it doesn't matter who your DH is. It doesn't matter if it was ProFar, it doesn't matter if it's Dom Smith, if you don't have Austin Riley, you don't have Matt Olsen hitting for more power than 29 home runs. If you don't have a healthy Ronald Luna Jr., it does not matter. So, I have a piece coming out this afternoon, a little shorter thing. Uh, we talked about Jorge Solair on the newsletter the other day. Should the Braves try to trade for Jorge Solair to make him the DH against Wrighty's, you know, use him a little bit more because you have money freed up. Now, I've got another piece today talking about the guys who are likely to become available or who could potentially become available either via trade because they're blocked at every position or they are XXB free agents who have an opt out in the minor league deal that they've signed. I believe that piece is dropping right about 1:00 over on braves.com with a lot of different options. We're talking about Michael Conforto, Austin Slater, Ryan Mount Castle, lot of other guys. Who could the Braves go out and get? So, go check that out. Uh, we did see a couple transactions out of camp. So, John Carlos Lara, who finally got into a game the other day, he was optioned to Gwynette. And then they moved Austin Pope, the righty, who they've used a surprising amount actually, mostly on the road. They reassigned him to minor league camp as well as Jim Jarvis, Alex Lodis, and Luke Wadell. I commented the other day, I've been tracking this in the newsletter. I commented the other day on the show, John Heel has not really had a lot of chances to play shortstop. It's kind of been frustrating for me. Like, he has more games at designated hitter than he had innings at shortstop this spring. I talked to some people. They were confident in his defensive ability. They wanted to see some of these other guys. Here's the other side of that shoe, right? Jim Jarvis played a lot of shortstop. Alex Lud played a lot of shorts stop. Now those guys are in minor league camp. And im immediately John Heale went into the game yesterday as the shorts stop. He goes one for two. He scores twice because he first entered as a pinch runner. Came around to score then stayed in the game. played shortstop and got a, you know, got a hit later. But it kind of tells me something that when they moved position players out, prospects, right, John Heel was the one that they kept. And when they moved the pitchers out, they moved the prospect pitchers, they moved Owen Murphy and Garrett Bowman to minor league camp, they kept J.R. Richie because I think what we're learning is one, J.R. Richie legitimately they want to get him more experience against major league caliber lineups to see is he ready to debut in 26. I think we all assume that he is but they likely just want to kind of know for sure. The other part of that is seeing John Heel be kept in big league camp makes me wonder if my initial assumption that they were going to put Alex Lodis and John Heale and Cody Miller all in all in high A because that's the appropriate level for where they are based on where they were last year whether it was in college uh at single A whatever. makes me wonder if they think he'll advance enough to go straight to double A. He got a week in double A the end of year the year last year. They skipped ha and sent him straight to double A. Some of that was just scheduling, right? Who's at home versus who's on the road, but also they wanted to get him that test. They're now keeping him in spring training in big league spring spring training to keep giving him that test. Which makes me think, okay, we are absolutely in a situation where he could go to a higher level than the rest. And you know, Atlanta, if you are in double A, you are a threat to be called up. That's usually a rule for pitchers. I still don't think we likely see John Heel this year. I think at best it would be something late in September. But if you think about the perspective of Mauricio Duban's a free agent after this year, so is Hassan Kim. And you've got to figure out shortstop again. Testing him a little more in major league camp and then sending him to double A is the right way to see is he potentially an option for 2027. There is a world where he starts in double A. Maybe if he if he hits the ground running and does well, he gets some time in Gwynette and maybe they bring him up at the very end of the season and give him a cup of coffee in the majors the end of the year. And if he holds his own in double A and he holds his own in AAA and he holds his own in the majors, then he's a legitimate threat to be the starting shortstop in 2027. That's what I'm taking away from this. I'm not saying it's going to happen. It's probably not. But the fact that they kept him, I think is a big deal. And I think it shows we should be excited about his potential and where he could be. This has been Braves today for Friday, March 6. Do me a favor. You're listening on audio. Five star review be fantastic. Apple Spotify podcast. If you're watching on YouTube, subscribe to the channel. Hit the notification bell so you know when we go live. We drop a short bonus episodes. All that kind of stuff. And also don't forget the Braves Today audience survey. Links in the episode description, links in the show notes. Uh there's a prize for you at the end for doing it. We've gotten we're close to a hundred responses on the survey already and it's already kind of made me adjust and bring more to the table. whether it's bonus newsletters, planning some bonus podcast stuff, things like that. Until next time, this has been Braves today. [music] [music]

Lindsay Crosby breaks down positives from Thursday’s Braves spring training game, focusing on Spencer Strider’s improving velocity and fastball movement, how that helped his slider miss bats, and his increased use of secondary pitches (curveball and changeup) against lefties despite uneven surface results. The episode also evaluates Mike Yastrzemski’s encouraging at-bats versus left-handed pitching—highlighting adjustments, hard contact, and the limitations of small-sample platoon splits—plus how Eli White could factor into outfield solutions. Crosby then discusses Dominic Smith’s case to open as the primary DH, noting his quality plate appearances and a two-run homer off Louis Varland, while emphasizing larger team success hinges on key stars’ performance and health. The show closes with camp cuts and what keeping shortstop prospect John Gil in big-league camp could imply about his development path. (Take our NEW audience survey for 2026: https://forms.gle/5VPxJGQiuPqcpDDB6) 01:41 Strider's 2nd outing of spring 14:04 Yastrzemski vs LHP 20:53 Dom Smith DH Case 28:32 John Gil's Minor League Assignment Subscribe to Braves Today on audio wherever you get your podcasts Join our NEW Discord: https://discord.gg/wksQqVNEpX Follow the show on Twitter: @braves_today Follow Lindsay on Twitter: @CrosbyBaseball Read our written work: bravestoday.substack.com Send us questions: contact@bravestoday.com Get 10% off at Chinook Seedery with promo code "Braves" Get 20% off at NCase Cards with promo code "BravesToday" Rocker Chicks by Audionautix is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/